Friday, 23 May 2014

A man who was holding a woman hostage has been taken to hospital after being shot by police during a siege at a house in Liverpool.

Officers were called to a property in the Dovecot area of the city, at 7am on Thursday after reports that a woman was being held hostage by a man known to her who was believed to be armed with a knife and a gun, Merseyside police said. (from The Guardian)

Taking some ideas from this news story for your next game of Siege, your captor could have any of the following motivations.
- Arguing for custody of the children, especially threatening the mother of the children.
- A drunken argument gone wrong, with no one backing down.
- The woman is his daughter. He's holding her hostage to force his wife to drop her property claims in the divorce.

Tuesday, 6 May 2014

Perhaps it's because I've been listening to KARTAS for so long. Or perhaps it's because Robin Laws is a clever cookie. Either way, I'm taking up some vocabulary from him and swapping it as part of the Great Leap Forward that our hobby is in the middle of.

There shall no longer be the NPC, there will be the GMC.

He mentioned GMC in passing and didn't explain it. The context was enough for me to get it. I might be well behind the curve in adopting the term but I'm definitely an enthusiastic supporter.

Sunday, 4 May 2014

I've been watching Orphan Black and in the second season we start seeing more of a faction that has a religious interest in the clones. It makes for a good story element and provides plenty of conflict and choices for the protagonists.

But it makes me think that groups like this are always the religious nutters. Doesn't matter if it's the X-Files or Supernatural or whatever, they're cast in that light.

In gaming it's probably quite similar. I think of exceptions like Warhammer or Dogs In The Vineyard, though. Those settings put the religious nutters as established religion so they don't count as fringe groups any more.

With all of that rattling around in my mind I've taken an interest in playing a religious nutter, steeped in cult language and motivations. I'm not sure if the urge will have gone by the time the opportunity comes but I'll just have to park the idea.

Have any of you out there had experience playing these characters? How did it go for you?